Church experts say Pope is 'unrepentant'

Tuesday 19 September 2006 09:07 BST

Apology: Pope Benedict XVI said he was sorry about the violent reaction to his speech

Pope Benedict XVI has been on the defensive over the past 24 hours, apologising for the misinterpretation of his speech, the violent reaction to it and has said that the words he quoted did not reflect his own opinion.

But today Church experts have claimed that, far from having made a mistake, it is extremely unlikely that the Pope would have inflamed the feelings of so many Muslims without realising what he was doing.

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The Pope on Sunday said he was deeply sorry Muslims had been offended by his use of a mediaeval quotation on Islam and violence, but his words failed to quell the fury of some Islamic groups demanding a full apology.

In the speech, the Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. The emperor said everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

Marco Politi, Vatican Expert at La Republicca newspaper, begs to differ. He wrote: "The debacle into which the Holy See has fallen after [the Pope's] speech at the University of Regensburg ... is much more than an accident of communication."

He went on to add that the speech had set back a quarter of a century of efforts by his predecessor John Paul II to improve ties with Islam: "The unhappy anti-Mohammed quotation, followed by the violent reaction of the Islamic world and the bitter indignation of moderate European Muslims, has brought violently to light the rupture completed by the Pope with the strategy conducted for more than two decades with success by John Paul II."

The Pope on Sunday said the quotation did not represent his personal views. But the use of the quotation at all was seen by some Muslims as deeply offensive and some Church experts warned of a breakdown in relations with Islam.

Writing in the Turin newspaper La Stampa, Gian Enrico Rusconi, a professor at Turin University, said the consequences of the speech "signal an irreversible break not only in relations between Islam and the Catholic Church but also of the very image of the Pope in the West."

John Paul, who died last year, was the first Pope to visit a mosque. He travelled to a number of predominantly Muslim countries and welcomed a string of Islamic religious and political leaders to the Vatican during his 27-year-long papacy.

Pope Benedict, however, has indicated that he would not be following his predecessor's example. Politi said: "At his inaugural mass as Pope, Benedict XVI cut out any reference to a fraternal relationship" with Islam.

Last February, Benedict removed the president of the Vatican department for dialogue with Islam and merged it with the Vatican's culture ministry. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, one of the Church's most experienced hands at dialogue with Muslims, was sent to Cairo in what was widely seen a demotion.